Regarding Witches and Ghosts
by ilovepuppies125
Summary: While doing research for a school project, Sam discovers that she is related to a witch. With this, comes abilities that she didn't know she had, along with a large spell book in the attic. Sam had been waiting for the right time to tell Danny, but when she gets kidnapped, will she ever get the chance?
1. Chapter 1

Regarding Witches and Ghosts

Chapter 1:

Sam POV-

"Today we will be studying the Salem Witch Trials," Mr. Lancer announced to our class. I perked up, finally, after all of his boring droning on, we could finally work on something interesting…or at least interesting to me, after all I am the Goth girl.

"Now," Mr. Lancer continued, "You will each draw a subject out of this hat and will do a report as well as some kind of visual presentation of this person and their life in the 1600's." Mr. Lancer came to me with the hat, I reached in, fishing around through the little tabs of paper before I finally pulled on out. I unfolded the little slip of paper and read the name that had been typed on it: Bridget Bishop.

…

After school, I was actually excited to get started on this assignment, while Danny and Tucker groaned as we walked home together. Personally, I think the only reason Tucker was grumbling about the assignment was because he still resented the fact that he had to eat the blood blossoms when we accidentally ended up in Salem when we took a little detour through the ghost zone (now I wish we could have stayed a little longer and maybe asked our research topics some questions, but unfortunately, with the ghost zone always changing, that would be impossible now.)

"Who did you get?" Tucker asked Danny.

"George Burroughs?" he stated more like a question, "What about you?"

"Samuel Wardwell," he replied, shrugging.

"What about you Sam?" Danny asked.

"Bridget Bishop," I told them. Finally, we stopped in front of my house and I said goodbye to my two best friends and Danny gave me a little peck on the cheek, before I ran up the stairs to my front door and went inside.

At my computer, I typed in Bridget's name and was immediately bombarded with 4,570,000 results. I sighed loudly and clicked on the first site that came up. After reading a little bit about Bridget, I found it easy to relate to her. Like me, we were both individuals, who were not respected for our originality, not to mention we both shared the same dislike of authority. Bridget stood out like a sore thumb in the 1600's with her multiple marriages, her tendency to wear a lot of red (which was considered the color of the devil back then, much like my Goth clothes are considered today). Of course, I couldn't help but wonder if Bridget actually was a witch, or if she was just someone that society wanted to dispose of.

What I found the most interesting was that in one of her marriages Bridget had had a daughter named Christian who had married a man with the last name of Manson, exactly like my last name. There were few pictures of Bridget online, and even fewer that could actually be considered accurate, but I noticed that we both had dark hair and a similar facial structure, but more than anything, she looked like my grandmother.

So, I decided to ask my grandma about our heritage to see if were actually were related to Bridget Bishop.

"Yes," my grandmother laughed, "we are most definitely related to the infamous Bridget Bishop. The stories have been passed down for many generations," she told me. I understood why I had never heard any of these stories, my parents, being the rich, snooty people that they are, would never have told me such a thing (they already believed I was rotten to the core, throw in the fact that we are descended from someone who might be a witch…well, it makes sense why they didn't tell me).

"What stories?" I asked tentatively.

My grandmother smiled warmly, "I'll tell you the one that my grandmother often told me, the day of Bridget's execution."

"The town of Salem were very closed-minded people, they only believed the testimonies of those who were high in the church or in the courts, of course, back then, there was really no distinguishing between the two. Bridget was different, she liked to stand out, especially if it got on some people's nerves, much like you, Dear. Anyway, she owned the local tavern and worked as a bar maid in it. One day, the court officials showed up at the tavern and arrested her. The night before her trial, she sat in jail, when her daughter Christian, who couldn't have been more than your age at the time. Through the window of the jail cell, Bridget told her daughter to leave town so that she would not suffer the same unavoidable fate as her mother. You see, the courts often targeted the families of the accused as well. So that night, Christian left Salem and moved to a small village outside of the city. Many years after the trial, she returned, but now she was married and no one made the connection between her and her mother, and thus the Bishop line was able to continue," she told me.

"Wow," was all I could say.

My grandmother chuckled, "Well, I think that's all for now, we wouldn't want your parents to think I was poisoning your young mind with these tales of witchcraft, now would we," she winked.

This time I laughed. "Grandma?" I asked a few minutes later.

"Yes, Dear?" she replied.

"Do you think she actually was a witch?" I wondered.

My grandmother shook her head, "I'm sorry Sam, I don't know, I believe those secrets lie in the grave with Bridget herself."

I nodded, "Thanks Grandma," I told her before we departed and I went back upstairs to my bedroom. I hadn't realized it had already gotten so late until I saw the black sky outside. I sighed, getting undressed and ready for bed.

'_Hmm,' _I pondered right before I fell asleep, '_I wonder if we have any artifacts in the attic that would prove whether Bridget was a witch or not.' _I closed my eyes and made a plan, tomorrow, while my parents were out of the house, I would go look in the attic.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2:

Sam POV-

I watched as my parents pulled off of the driveway, limousine and all (subtle, huh?), waiting until they were completely out of sight before I decided to explore the attic. I slid on a pair of faded blue jeans and an oversized Dumpty Humpty t-shirt (which, anyone who knows me would know that I hardly ever wear this, but I certainly could not imagine rummaging through the attic in a skirt and mini tee. I pulled the cord down, revealing the stairs underneath and started my climb into the attic. I clenched the flashlight in my teeth as I used both of my hands to cling to the thin rungs of the ladder. Finally, I made it to the top. Brushing a random cobweb off of my shoulder I scanned the attic.

Our attic is relatively large, but not very full (it may surprise you that my parents are not the kind of people to get sentimental about anything). Exposed wood and insulation surrounded me on each side. What little light was flooding in came from a long horizontal window near the ceiling that slanted toward the roof and casted eerie shadows on the dusty boxes.

"Only problem is," I muttered to myself, "I have no idea what I'm looking for." Finally, I sighed, tying my hair into a small ponytail at the base of my neck (also something I rarely do with my short hair) and started with the first box in the back corner. This box, was a collection of old family photos (none of me of course) but instead, they were of my grandmother and her siblings when they were younger. The images had become very grainy and distorted after all of these years but I could still make out the images. I found one of my grandmother and her sister playing in the yard of the house where my great grandparents lived. Another one of my grandmother dressed for prom in a large poufy black (I knew we were related) dress, with lace running all down the sleeves. I smiled at this and tucked the photo into my back pocket along with a few of the other ones had found. Then I came to a family portrait. And there, were my great grandparents, my grandmother, her younger sister, and her older brother along with someone, an older girl who I didn't recognize. I was so focused on the distorted image; I hadn't heard my grandmother poke her head up the hole where the stairs came down.

"Hey Sammy," she said behind me, nearly scaring me out of my skin, I swear, if I hadn't had been sitting down, I would have jumped directly through the low attic ceiling.

"Grandma!" I shrieked, still trying to calm my racing heart, "Don't do that!"

She chuckled, pulling the rest of her body through the opening and taking a seat beside me, "Whatcha got there, honey?" she asked me.

"Family photos, " I told her, handing her a stack. She smiled flipping through the memories. I interrupted her to show her the photo I still had clutched in my hand.

"Grandma?" I asked, and she looked up at me, her violet eyes boring into mine, "Who is this?" I tapped my painted fingernail on the image of the teenage girl in the picture. She looked down at where I was pointing and, for a moment, her expression darkened and a look of sorrow crossed over her usually soft features.

"My sister," she sighed finally. I was confused, I had never met this girl, that much I knew, although, now looking at the picture it was easy to see the resemblance between her and my grandmother.

"How come I have never met her?" I asked much more softly.

"She died, shortly after this picture was taken, actually," she told me, her voice was softer too. I didn't quite know what to say. In all of the pictures I had looked at, I hadn't seen her before. The expression she wore was one of pure boredom, like she didn't want to be there at all, an expression, in fact, that I was quite familiar with.

I turned the somewhat crumpled picture over in my hand and read my great grandmother's handwriting scrawled on the back. The inscription read:

_August 4, 1946 Richard and I with Alice (12 years), Mabel (9 years), David (18 years), and Christian (15 years) at the County Fair. _

The first two names I recognized as the names of my great grandparents. I also recognized Alice which was my grandmother's name, Mabel, her younger sister (who hated her name, and still goes by her middle name: Elizabeth), and David, her older brother, but the last name, Christian, stood out the most to me.

'_Wasn't Christian the same name as Bridget Bishop's daughter?' _I thought to myself, I was half tempted to ask my grandmother about this but seeing the now glassy look in her eyes, I was more tempted to ask if she was alright.

I opened my mouth to speak but she spoke before I could, "You know what dear?" she asked rhetorically, trying to hide the sadness in her voice, "Sitting like this isn't good for my hip, I'll see you down stairs." She kissed me on the forehead with a weak smile, standing, but crouching to avoid hitting the ceiling.

"Okay grandma," I replied feeling guilty that I had made her remember such painful memories. I crawled behind her and watched her climb slowly down the stairs, making sure she made it back down safely, before scrambling back to the spot I was in before. Once again, I tucked the photo into my back pocket, determined to do some more research on this new member of our family that I had never been told about. I tossed this box to the side, making sure to place all of the loose pictures back in their appropriate spots.

"Okay," I whispered to myself, "No more distractions." I stood up, moving to another corner of the room, considering I had had no luck in this area.

I plopped down in front of an old wooden dollhouse and a few more discarded boxes. I opened the boxes, still nothing, just other various pictures, quilts and papers. I sighed, plopping on my butt. I had been up here for a few hours already and, no doubt my parents would be home soon, and, with the heat of the afternoon sun, the temperature of the attic was already starting to rise. I felt sweat beginning to bead on the back of my neck and I considered calling it quits for now and maybe finding some other time when my parents were out of the house. I started to stand up again but I accidentally kicked a random box with my foot. I turned around, just to make sure that I had not caused any damage to some priceless family heirloom, but instead, peeking out from between the two boxes I had just searched was a third box, nestled in the deepest corner beneath some low-hanging wooden beams.

Carefully, I lifted this box up. I could already tell this one was different. The cardboard was a darker shade of brown and it felt, almost, older somehow. Carefully I pulled at the flaps that had been so neatly tucked together. I peeked inside.

There were only two things in the box, an old book and a small wooden box. I lifted the, relatively heavy, book out of the box, rubbing my fingers along the old leather spine. The front of the book was plain except for a few gold markings in…Latin? along the spine. A shiver ran down my own spine as I opened the cover carefully, not wanting to destroy the book. On the inside of the cover, written in beautiful calligraphy, was the name _Bridget Bishop, _and the date _March 20, 1670. _Suddenly the book in my hands felt much darker, more priceless, heavier, and _much_ more dangerous. I can't explain it, but I could almost _feel _a negative energy radiating from the book. I gulped, but continued flipping the pages which were filled with spells in a language I didn't understand.

About halfway through, something fell out of one of the pages. I held my breath, fearing I had damaged the book, but I picked it off of the floor and discovered it to actually be photograph. I studied the image and my breath caught in my throat as I realized the image was of Christian, not Bridget's daughter but my grandmother's sister. It was a picture of her, a few years younger, standing in the yard, laughing. Her face had been scratched through but I could still recognize her features. I flipped the picture over, in my great grandmother's handwriting it said: _Christian, age 11._ In the corner of the picture was a rust-colored stain.

'_Blood!' _I realized suddenly, closing the book and dropping the picture into the cardboard box. Then I remembered the wooden box inside of the cardboard box. I picked it up, holding it between my hands. It only took a second of debating with myself before my curiosity got the better of me and I opened the little latch on the box. I gasped at the contents.

Inside of the box was a small porcelain doll, coated in dried blood, with her head missing, along with a few more mangled pictures of my grandmother's sister. I quickly closed the box and put it back in the cardboard box as fast as I could without throwing it. I picked up the book, and before I could talk myself out of it, I grasped it underneath my arm, and carried it down the ladder. I closed the attic behind me, and, practically sprinted to my bedroom. I through the book onto my bed where it landed with a soft thud, and started pacing, trying to calm myself down. My hands shook, I don't know what I had just seen up their or how my grandmother's sister was involved with 300 year old magic, but I wasn't sure I wanted to find out. Being a Goth, I am no stranger to those who experiment with witchcraft (even if I never have) but somehow this book seemed to hit on a completely different level.

'_But,' _I reasoned with myself, '_You did discover what you set out today to prove: Bridget Bishop was a witch. And now you have excellent proof that should definitely get you an A.' _My eyes flickered over to the spell book on my bed and I shook my head again. I picked up the book, realizing that my simple school project had just gotten more complicated. I slid the book under my bed, when suddenly my phone rang, making me jump, and immediately making me remember that I had made plans with Danny and Tucker at the Nasty Burger today.

'You're not alone, together we stand, I'll be by your side you know I'll take your hand…" the song Keep Holding On by Avril Lavigne which I had programmed as my ringtone for Danny blasted through the speakers of my cellphone. I grabbed it out of my desk drawer, answering it.

"Sam, where are you?" he asked in that 'I'm-almost-worried-but-don't-want-to-send-out-a-search-party-yet' voice. I rolled my eyes, my worries temporarily forgotten, "I've been calling you for like twenty minutes!" he told me.

"I'm sorry okay, I'll be there soon," I told him. We exchanged our goodbyes and I pocketed my phone. I released my hair from my ponytail, not bothering to change, before running down the stairs and out the front door to the Nasty Burger.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3:

Sam POV-

"Sam are you okay?" Danny asked, again, as I poked at my Nasty Burger salad.

"Yeah, you see kind of…off," Tucker added.

"Will you guys just stop, I'm fine okay?!" I snapped, my voice coming out much harsher than I had intended.

"We're just trying to make sure you're alright," Danny added, more softly. I sighed and looked up at my two best friends.

"I'm sorry okay, I just…I'm really stressed out right now," I told them. Danny smiled in understanding.

"Stressed? What are you stressed about?" Tucker asked, followed quickly by a loud "OUCH!" as I'm assuming, Danny kicked him in the shin.

"Sam you know you can talk to us about it right?" Danny reminded me. I smiled at him.

"Yeah, I know, it's just some usual family stuff, you know?" I half-lied to him, Danny accepted my excuse, because I often have problems with my parents, and continued to eat his fries.

It wasn't that I didn't trust them with the information I had just found out (then again, I'm not sure that Tucker wouldn't run up to Paulina saying that I'm a witch or something), it was that I still didn't know exactly what had just discovered. Before I told them, I wanted to make sure I had all the facts right and maybe do a little more research on my family history.

When we had finished our lunch, we headed outside and started walking back to Danny's house where the two boys were going to play video games. Normally, I would be right beside them, kicking their butts, but today my heart just wasn't in it as my mind kept flickering back to the leather-clad book under my bed.

"Hey," I told them, "I'll see you guys later, I really should go home." Danny's eyebrows furrowed in confusion or maybe concern but he didn't argue or press for more information.

"Okay," he said finally, "See you later, Sam." I smiled gratefully at him and started off in the other direction to my house. My parents had finally come home, but I really didn't feel like a confrontation with my mom right now, so I snuck in the back door, which was mainly used by the maids and other servants.

Creeping up the back staircase to my room, I quietly closed my bedroom door behind me, locking it.

I pulled the book out from under my bed and stared at it, flipping open to the first couple of pages. The commands of the spells were all in Latin or something, but the explanations were in English. I skimmed over the pages and was surprised to see that most of the spells were for some kind of healing or earth magic, and the ones that weren't were for simple things like object levitation. The more pages I flipped though, the more I began to realize that I had not found anything that could be used as something evil. There were no spells to control or possess others, nothing to bring spirits back from the grave, nothing to make contact with the devil. In fact, everything I found seemed much more like Wiccan magic than witch magic.

'_So maybe Bridget wasn't a witch after all, maybe she was a Wiccan or a healer, who was just misunderstood,' _I thought to myself, '_But how does that explain all of the voodoo witch stuff of my great aunt that I found in the attic?'_

I didn't have the answer to this question until I flipped to the furthest back section of the book, the part where the pages were black. As I read the spell description, I realized this is where the evil magic was contained. There were splatters of blood on the corners of the pages as I flipped through, tentatively.

I gulped as I realized how dangerous this information could actually be if it fell into the wrong hands. Nevertheless, I continued reading. Then another picture fluttered out. I plucked the picture off of my bedspread and studied it. It was the same as the old family photo I had found earlier, except, in this photo, everyone but Christian had been scratched out of the photograph. This was the point that I realized that maybe it had been Christian who had begun to dabble in dark magic.

That information scared me.

Seeing the photograph with my family members scratched out, I wondered that if Christian had ever actually succeeded, would my grandmother be dead? And for that matter, would I have even be born?

This was almost too much information to take in, I slid the photograph back into the pages and closed the book. Putting the book where my parents, and even my grandmother, would not find it: underneath a few loose wooden panels in the floor.

I looked at the clock on my nightstand. The glowing red letters red 9:30, so it was still relatively early, and plus, tomorrow was a Sunday so I wouldn't have to wake up early, so I decided to take a bath.

I filled the bathtub with scented soaps, running the warm water and allowing the bathtub to fill with bubbles. I wanted to light some candles, but after what I had just read, I immediately decided against it. I slipped out of the jeans and t-shirt I was still wearing and slid into the bathtub, feeling the warm water already beginning to wash away my stress.

'_Tomorrow,' _ I told myself, '_I'll do a little more research on Christian and how she died.'_

When the water started to cool, I got out of the tub, and realized that I had been in there for an hour and a half, it was now 11:00. I slipped into my silky black pajamas and crawled into bed. I didn't realize how exhausted I was until my head hit the pillow and my body immediately surrendered to sleep.


End file.
